


Belief

by TheRighteousMan (FullmetalFlameElric)



Series: Growing Pains [21]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Healing Magic, John Arc, Magic, Pack Family, There are seriously tags for a magical healing cock/vagina, but none for magical healing, how does that even work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalFlameElric/pseuds/TheRighteousMan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Magick hurts…. It heals and it makes amazing things. It can grow plants and help us to find our loved ones and protect them. But it’s a doubled edged sword, John. It kills. It burns and it destroys.” Stiles whispered, a small flame igniting just above his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belief

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *insert manic screaming of joy and streaking outside in the cold here*
> 
> That took forever. Now... to get started on the next installment of the John Arc.... Save me.

It all started with a Jade pendant. It was a simple, tear drop shaped piece of stone secured in a wax cord. There were no distinct markings other than an etched in design of a dragon’s blood blossom climbing up the left side. It was hand done with care, silver lacing the inside of the carving.

Lifting it from where it lay on the desk in his mother’s office, John ran his thumb over the design. It was so delicate looking and yet he could feel it thrumming with power. It warmed his fingertips and caused a small electrical shock to course up his arms and along his spine.

“John?” The door creaked open and Stiles stepped into his office, lifting a brow as he spotted his middle child. “What’re you-” he paused as his gaze fell on the pendant in his son’s grasp. Eye’s widening and heart rate picking up, he crossed the room and swiped the pendent from his hands. “Don’t touch that!” he snapped, worried and slightly panicked as he opened a locked drawer, setting it inside before locking the drawer once more. “What are you doing in here?” He asked, his tone coming out more of a growl than John was used to.

“I..uh… Lydia needed… the bottle of mountain ash you had for her… She said you kept it in your office.” John stammered out, shocked at the sudden spike of anxiety rolling off his mother.

“I’ll get it. You’re not supposed to be in here. You know that.” Stiles scolded.

“I-”

“Out. John.”

 

It was a moment that stuck with John for well over a week. He wasn’t used to seeing his mom act as such and he knew the man was usually care free and open about his personal spaces. But his reaction to John being in his office was almost alarmingly wrong despite the lack of punishment he received. He wanted answers. Ones he knew his parents wouldn’t answer. So he did what he did best.

He started looking on his own.

At the age of fourteen, he had a wide variety of resources at his disposal. His parents keep a large library of books scattered around the house and they never denied their children access to them. By going through Stiles’ emissary based texts and the bestiaries he could find, John had stumbled upon the source of the electricity he’d felt when he’d touched the pendent.

Magick.

His mother knew magick. Of course it shouldn’t have come as a shock. John had seen Stiles do the odd protective seal or ward on their home. But the traces and small notes he’d find scribbled in the margins of certain books. Certain pages dog eared. The occasional highlighted passage.

John never knew how deep into magick Stiles had gotten until he stumbled upon the battered journal written in his mother’s handwriting. Inside he found diagrams and charts, documenting seasons and lunar cycles. Notes on the eye color of a werewolf as well as footnotes on Stiles’ own color changing. He kept coming across the word “spark” and “belief”.

 

“You know… you can read everything you want but you’ll never actually grasp it until you practice it.” Peter’s voice cut through the quiet of the room. Jolting out of his musings, the fourteen year old werewolf flailed and fell out of his seat.

“There’s a floor there…” John groaned, sitting up and rubbing his nose as he turned a look on his great uncle. “...I didn’t know you were here.” he added in greeting.

“Only just arrived.” Peter mused, bending over and carefully picking up the journal from the floor. He lifted a brow and hummed. “Well now… seems Stiles hasn’t given it all up, after all… especially if he’s letting you read this.” He added, pointing the corner of the book towards John before nodding to it himself. 

John frowned and worried his lower lip. “Uh… He doesn’t… mom doesn’t… know I found it.”

That gave Peter pause as he turned back to John. “He doesn’t? Hmm…. then why, little wolf, would you be reading this? Curious, perhaps?”

“I… uh…” John hesitated before clearing his throat. “I thought… maybe… well… mom’s always trying to keep us safe and… I thought…”

“You thought if you learned some, you could help him…” Peter finished, having spent enough time around his nephew’s kids to know how they thought. Sighing, he looked over the book before turning to John. “You’re not going to learn anything useful if you never learn how to use it..”

John swallowed and nodded, ducking his head. “I know… but I can’t ask mom…”

“Obviously if you’re keeping your interest a secret from him…” Peter fell silent once more, contemplating. His blue eyes focused on the journal for a long moment before sliding towards John. Shrugging, he crossed his arms. “I guess the only option is for me to teach you.”

“Serious?”

“Seriously… Just… don’t tell your mother.”

 

“Magick is, in the simplest form, energy. It’s something that, if channeled right and the right amount of focus, training, and belief are put into it, any being can use it.” Peter explained, sitting out in the middle of the preserve with John on the ground mere feet from him. “To even begin to cast, you have to train the body to focus first.” Peter stopped his pacing here and looked pointedly at the teen. “Of which I think isn’t an issue considering the morning workouts your father puts you through…”

“Is there a reason I’m sitting in a patch of wild onion?” John deadpanned, the pup stated flatly at his great uncle.

Peter shushed him, shaking his head. “We’ve worked on charging crystals. Remember? Focusing and channeling energy into the crystal to make it glow?”

John just continued to stare, unamused at the elder’s antics. All he could smell and taste was onions. It was making his eyes water.

Sighing, Peter set his hands on his hips and frowned. “It’s just like that. Just focus on the onions and the energy around you. And believe that they’ll do their job. If it works, the scent should neutralize to you, strengthen for me, and you should feel like you’re in a bubble of warmth.” He explained.

“Got it… That still doesn’t answer my question. Why. Am I. Surrounded. By onions.”

“Dear god, you are your father’s son. Did you know that Derek asks questions the same way? No sense of audible question mark? Just a statement?” Peter mused, lifting a brow. It earned him a rumbling growl from John. Awww the puppy growls. Then again, the flash of those golden eyes and the look he was getting from the pup were frightfully like Derek.

“Peter.”

“Onions have properties that protect against illness and minor evil.” Peter quickly stated, continuing with his lesson. “When activated, I should have difficulty passing when I try to attack you.” He paced around the patch of onions and stopped when he was before John once more. “Just focus on me as the evil you want it to ward against.”

“I think that’s easy enough…” John muttered, ignoring the smirk Peter tossed his way.

“Just focus….”

 

“Oh man…. I ache…” John whimpered, slumping on his bed. Beside him, Alyssa giggled. She set her small hand on her brother’s head and patted his head.

“Then take a nap, silly.” the eight year old stated, flopping down to lie on the werewolf. He grunted and peeked over his shoulder to look at her, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Be glad you’re not a werewolf, Lyssa-bug.” John muttered, yawning and burying his face in his arm and pillow once more. “Dad would be making you go through these workouts too.”

“No he wouldn’t!” Alyssa giggled, rolling to rest her chin on his shoulder and pat his back. “Daddy loves me too much!” she laughed. John just smiled a bit more at the sound of his little sister’s laugh. He loved that sound. He hadn’t heard it enough since she was five. That laugh was enough to remind him why he was suffering Peter’s training on top of his father’s.

To make sure she kept smiling.

 

“Very good. You’re improving nicely, John.” Peter praised, watching as John carefully drew out a protection ward and pushed a touch of magick into it making it glow. The teen just hummed, sitting back and sighing. Should he bring it up?

His fingertips tingled and he wiggled his fingers to try and get the feeling to lessen. The tips of his thumbs were going numb, but the sudden movement eased the dull ache starting in his joints. He snapped his attention to Peter as the elder wolf shifted with purpose once more.

It could wait.

“Now… I want you to make that healing rune we worked on. See if you can get it to work on me.” Peter started, grabbing the notebook and flipping to the rune before setting it down in front of John.

 

John waited until Stiles was out the door before he sought out his father. It was one of the few days that Derek had off, Stiles was working, and his sisters were at their friends’ houses. It left a good few hours for John to talk to his father alone without any interference.

He found the alpha in the living room, sprawled out on a couch watching reruns of The Red Green Show. The man hadn’t even bothered getting properly dressed, staying in a pair of loose basketball shorts and a ratty old hoodie. 

“Uh… hey, Dad?” John muttered, hesitating in the doorway to the family room. Hazle eyes lifted to focus on the teen and blinked slowly, completely relaxed as a smile formed.

“Hey, kiddo. What’d ya need?” He asked. Looking over the relaxed and happy look on his father’s face, John found it hard to see the scowl his mother was always joking about. He’d seen pictures of course, but having grown up knowing nothing but an easy smile on his father’s face, it was hard to imagine anything else being more natural than a smile.

“Uh…” He really hated the idea that he was likely about to ruin his father’s easy mood. “I… I wanted to talk to you… about… well.. about Mom… I guess.” He bordered hesitantly.

Derek frowned and slowly sat up. Yeah, there goes the easy afternoon. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s- nothing’s wrong, Dad… I just… I wanted to try and… understand some things, I guess.” John hurried to explain, shifting uneasily. Derek studied him a long moment before motioning John over to the other side of the couch.

“C’mon and sit down.” Derek sighed, shifting and getting comfortable. John only hesitated a moment before he took a seat in the opened spot. “Now… what’d you want to know about?”

No easy way to approach this. Might as well jump headlong in.

“Why does mom do simple wards, but won’t do actual magick?” John asked, shifting uneasily where he sat.

Derek stilled, watching his son closely. His brow furrowed and it was as if John was seeing a ghost of a time before him, when things weren’t as stable as they were now. It settled heavily in John’s gut and he immediately regretted his words.

Sighing, Derek ran a hand through his hair. “... John… your mother… Stiles is… he’s one of the most powerful…” he hesitated here, debating on the right term. “He’s the most powerful Warlock I know… and it’s partially because of his status as a Spark. But it’s mostly because…” Hazle eyes dropped to the couch and Derek’s shoulders slumped. “Because when I left… After the whole thing with the Alpha Pack… Stiles… Your mother wasn’t in a very good place.. mentally or emotionally… and he had… almost no one to rely on. So he turned to magick…. and he let it consume him. He became so… reliant on magick that it was destroying him…” Derek paused here, running a hand over his face as he collected his thoughts. “... it took us… Lydia mostly… a long… very long time to get him to be ok again… He’s still not completely alright… but he’s better… He’s a lot better… but part of that is because he doesn’t touch magick anymore…”

John swallowed and nodded. Should he really be doing this? Would they get angry if they knew? If they knew he’d gone to Peter to learn? But he hadn’t known before. But then there was Stiles’ reaction to John being in his office.

“....Why do you ask?”

Clearing his throat, John lifted his gaze to his father. “He uh… mom wasn’t… happy when I was in his office trying to find something for Lydia.”

Understanding dawned in Derek’s eyes and he nodded. “Stiles is… nervous around magick. It took him years to be able to do simple wards and protection charms. It’s something he let damage him and so… he doesn’t want you kids near it. Because as much as it’s a part of him… it scares him what it could do to you and your sisters…”

John just nodded, letting it all sink in. A few moments when he was younger were finally making sense to him. His fingers started tingling and he closed his eyes, focusing on trying to will the feeling away.

“...Just… careful with anything magickal around your mother… alright?”

“Yeah… thanks, Dad. I know this isn’t easy for you to talk about, but… I just… wanted to understand a few things a little better…”

Derek just nodded and pulled his son to his chest, arms wrapped around him. “I know. I’m just glad you asked instead of digging on your own… You know you can ask us anything….” He murmured into his son’s hair. John just nodded, burying his face in his father’s neck. “Love you, kid…”

“Love you too, Dad…”

 

It snowed on Stiles’ birthday when John was sixteen. It was a light dusting, coating the ground in a good two inches of white powder. The trees were white, Stiles’ police cruiser and Derek’s truck resembling a white mushroom and a sleeping polarbear respectively. But it was the main walkway that was getting on Siles nerves.

“What the hell are you doing?” Derek muttered, walking up to his mate and husband. Stiles was stood in the front doorway, main door open with the screen door as a flimsy shield against the cold. He was wrapped in blankets and sweats, refusing to get dressed until he had to. In his hands, he held a small controller.

“Clearing the walk…” Stiles mumbled, flicking another of the directional sticks. Derek lifted a brow and turned his attention to where Stiles was intently looking outside.

“Oh my god.. really?” Derek sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. Outside, he watched as a small RC Jeep (blue to match Stiles old Besty Blue) drove along the walk, using an attached plow to shovel the snow to the side and clear a path. “That’s pathetic, Stiles…”

“It’s genius…”

“Uh huh…”

“Don’t question my brilliant ideas..” Stiles murmured distractedly, focusing on his task.

“Pathetic.” Derek stated, turning to head further into the house.

“Genius, Derek! Pure genius!”

Derek just rolled his eyes and continued into the kitchen. “Pure genius my furry little wolf ass…” He grumbled under his breath.

From the kitchen table, John didn’t bother glancing up from the omelette he was devouring, text book open in front of him. “You’ve been listening to Mom too much, Dad. You’re making werewolf jokes.” He muttered around a mouthful of egg, peppers, spinach, ham, and cheese.

Derek just shot his son an unamused look and poured himself a mug of coffee. Taking a whiff of the decaf, he sighed. “I miss caffeine…” he lamented, not for the the first time rethinking his caffeine ban in their house.

“You’re the one that put the ban on it cause of mom.” John reminded helpfully. Once again, Derek shot him a look.

“Thank you for reminding me… the stuff for breakfast still out?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee and setting it aside to grab the pan and rinse it quick to make sure it was good for another round of omelettes. John glanced up and nodded, Derek humming and setting the pan on to heat while he quickly went to mix the eggs.

He paused, however, when it wouldn’t light, frowning. He tried a few more times before sighing. “Damnit..” he grumbled. “I swear we just got this fixed last week.” John glanced up, watching as his father tried to get it started once or twice, failing each time. He let it continue for a moment, gaze focusing on the burner he was trying to get started. Derek continued to try, grumbling in the background as John’s focus shifted. He felt a warm flush of energy for a second before the flame flickered to life.

Derek blinked and watched the flame get to work. He tilted his head and studied it for a moment. “Huh.. must have been more worn out that I thought…” he muttered before getting to work on breakfast.

John just let him be, turning his gaze back to his textbook. He closed his eyes, taking a silent, steadying breath as he clenched his hands into fists. All he could feel was that odd numb and tingling sensation working its way from his fingertips and to his elbows. He focused on the sensation of feeling, willing the odd prickling away until it was gone and he felt normal once more. He unclenched his fists and let out a small sigh, slumping back into his chair and forcing himself to focus on his Mythology 101 final coming up.

 

“I swear to the moon, Derek! It’s not funny!” Stiles grumbled, wandering into the house. John’s head jerked up and he scrambled to cover his notes. He could hear his parents entering the house and he panicked. Hiding the magick notes, he put away the crystals and quickly sat on his notebook.

“I can’t believe I had to come get you out of a ditch.” Derek muttered, shaking his head.

“It is not my fault that there’s mud all over the roads!”

“I thought cruisers were supposed to be better now. But then again, who thought a camaro was a brilliant idea in our part of California…” Derek stated, laughing softly.

Stiles paused in the hallway, gaping. “OI! You used to own a camaro, Mr-my-pants-are-so-tight-people-can-see-my-butt-muscles-flex! But no! Now you’re driving that SUV of yours! And suddenly you’re high and mighty!” He flailed his arms for emphasis, Derek looking on amused before offence settled in.

“ _That_ happens to be an FJ Cruiser, Stiles! It’s a truck! _The_ truck, I might add, that just got your cruiser out of the ditch, _Sheriff_!” Derek shot back, continuing further into the house.

Stiles scoffed and hurried after him. “You did not just go there!”

John just watched as they wandered out of sight, blinking. Had they even noticed he was there? He shook his head and sighed, properly packing away his notes. That had been too close a call. He needed to find somewhere else to practice.

 

John continued his training in quiet. By the time he was eighteen and graduating from his last bit of schooling, he could speed up the growth of plants, create a flame large enough to light an area in a five foot radius, and could freeze water in mid air to create crystalline structures of ice. He noticed a subtle change in his scent, magick underlying his usual sandalwood. It was something he was used to with his mother, though the scents of magicks were different. For Stiles it was this underlying layer of ozone and sand. It was enough for rival packs to take a good whiff of him and back off for fear of the traces of heavy magick. But for John, he noticed the subtle addition of something sweeter. Like crushed beetle shells and pine tree sap.

It was an odd combination that always reminded him of the forest. It was comforting. It was a scent his mate couldn’t get enough of from the constant nose he had buried against his neck whenever he was sitting still. Then again, it was the scent Brandon had come to know him by. To him that scent meant mate.

He managed to keep things under wraps for nearly five years before that carefully constructed veil he kept between his family and his magick collapsed. It was his nineteenth birthday. It was a humid 95 degrees and not a single cloud in the sky. The pack had plans to celebrate the next evening after temperatures were supposed to cool down. It would be less miserable for everyone and much easier to enjoy.

Darting through the trees, John darted passed Brandon, Jackson ahead of the two by a few yards. Beside him, Brandon yipped softly and bumped shoulders with his mate, the two ducking and weaving as they ran together. They were content, happy and enjoying the last few hours of light.

John heard the whistle first. His head snapped up in time to see Jackson hit the ground and slide. His heart stopped for a quick second before he was running full speed towards the fallen alpha. Brandon was close behind, his own heartbeat skyrocketing.

“Jackson!”

“Oh my god!” Allison cried, the woman coming into view with her bow, dropping to the ground. “Shit! I thought you guys said you were going to be on the West side of the preserve!” she gasped out, helping to roll Jackson onto his back. The arrow was lodged in his chest, too close to the young alpha’s heart for John’s liking. “STILES!” Allison screamed, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. Behind her, Alyssa hurried over, her own smaller bow hitting the ground as she screamed in terror.

The heavy rushed footsteps of Stiles and Derek approached quickly, both skidding to a stop. “Oh god… Alyssa, go get my brown bag from inside.” Stiles stated, making his way over to the young werewolf. Brandon shifted aside, a hand steady on John’s shoulder as the teen knelt beside his friend.

“C’mon Jax…” John muttered, trying to keep him focused. “Jax…”

“Go, Alyssa!” Stiles urged, nudging her in the direction of the house. The twelve year old girl gasped and ran off, hurrying back to the house as quick she could.

“What the hell happened?” Derek growled, turning to look at Allison.

The woman shook her head. “I took Alyssa out for target practice. We were just shooting at the tree and I made sure we were on the East side of the preserve cause I knew they were going to be running on the west side.”

“This is close to his heart… I can’t do much else but try and keep him from bleeding out while he heals himself.” Stiles muttered, looking over the wound. “I have to remove the arrow… But I need my bag for that.”

John blocked their chatter out. All he could focus on was the the slowing of Jackson’s heart. He swallowed, tears spilling over as he reacted on instinct. He reached forward, taking a steading breath before pulling the arrow free. Distantly, he felt the hand on his shoulder tighten. Setting his hands on the wound, John whimpered. “You’re gonna be ok, Jax… you’re gonna be ok..” he soothed, closing his eyes. He could see, in his head, the skin mending and muscle knitting back together. He willed it to. Believed it would. His hands suddenly felt hot and a dull glow started that he could see through his eyelids. the hand on his shoulder was gone suddenly, removed as if it had touched fire.

“Oh god…” was the choked off, sick sounding response. His focus shattering, John snapped back to reality to notice the group had fallen silent. Blinking his eyes open, he looked to everyone, their gazes focused on him. Derek’s eyes had gone red, his gaze locked on John’s hands. The soft sound of Jackson’s heart and breathing evening out reassured John that wolf would be fine. With that, he looked down to his hands and froze. They were glowing a dull green.

His eyes widened as a rough grasp locked around his arm and pulled him up. His back met a tree and his yelped. “What did you do!?” Derek snarled. John gasped and whimpered, trying to scramble away from his father. For once, he was terrified of the man. “Johnathan!”

“Derek…” Stiles’ voice cut through, the man setting a gentle hand on Derek’s arm. “Stop… You’re scaring him…” Derek just growled in response and Stiles’ grip tightened on the man’s bicep. “Let him go…. Let me talk to him, Derek.”

The alpha looked between the two before he backed off, releasing his death grip on his son’s arm. Stiles watched him steadily as the man hesitated before turning to the others. He picked up Jackson and looked to Allison and Brandon. “Inside.” He growled, leaving no room for argument. Brandon hesitated, looking back towards John, his gaze lingering unsure before he turned and followed after the other two.

Stiles waited until they were gone before he sighed and motioned for John to walk with him. It was silent as they continued deeper into the preserve. It made John uneasy the further they went. He wasn’t used to seeing his mother this quiet. The man was usually so animated and loud it was hard to miss him. But now he was quiet, still, almost completely controlled like he was afraid to let himself do anything spontaneously. They stopped when they got to the river, Stiles taking a seat on a fallen log and John sitting on a rock across from him.

“Where did you learn that?” Stiles asked, tone gentle.

“I’m sorry.” John blurted, whimpering softly underneath it all. “I was curious. After that pendant I found in your office I started looking into it, cause I know you don’t like to talk about it and if I could find the answer without having to bring up old memories for you then I would leave it at that and then not have to bother you. But then I found this journal and it had all this information and charts and spells and just random things and- and Peter found me reading it and-”

“So Peter taught you…”

John swallowed and nodded. “Yeah…”

Stiles sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “What you found… it wasn’t a journal… Well… it is in a sense, but it’s more than that… It’s… my Book of Shadows…” He explained, keeping a steady gaze on his son. John just kept quiet, listening. “It’s… where I wrote down my notes to spell work and rituals… Where I kept life lessons I’d learned and memories I felt were important to what my magick was and what it meant to me… who I was. What I meant to myself.”

“That.. sounds like a magick journal.” John muttered, trying to understand it now. A small, almost sad smile tugged at Stiles’ lips.

“It’s like a journal, but it’s more meaningful… less fickle… what you put on the first page of it defines what everything else in that book will be….”

John paused here, recalling the first page. “... But all that’s on the first page is a picture of dad and a dried thing of mistletoe…”

The smile twisted slightly, forming into something that was a ghost of what little happiness it had held, as if Stiles was remembering darker days and things better left unspoken. “I know…”

“But…”

“I wasn’t… mentally stable when I began to write my book.” Stiles explained, brow drawing down and whiskey colored eyes dimming. “And because of that, that book became my life… my magick consumed me… There’s a reason I never offered for you and Laura to learn magick.”

“Because you don’t practice anymore… because of what happened when Dad was gone?” John asked, recalling his talk with his father years ago.

Stiles thought it over before nodding. “Yeah… But more than that. I… became too dependant on magick…. Magick isn’t inherently good, nor is it inherently evil. Magick is like energy. And just like energy, you can use it to create or destroy. After the things I’ve done with my magick… it scares me.”

“But Peter said that once you start using, it becomes you.”

“For Sparks, yes… Which means I’m scared of myself… I’m scared of what I’m capable of. It’s why I don’t go passed the basics anymore…” Stiles explained. John shifted uneasily, thinking this over. He knew Stiles still had nightmares now and then. He wondered if they had anything to do with this. “Do you… know why I’m so scared? Why Alyssa will never be able to do magick in her life?”

That caught John’s interest. “What?”

“She can’t..” Stiles muttered, ducking his head and running a hand through his hair. “...Do you remember when Alyssa was five… and you eleven? How you and your sisters went and stayed with Lydia and Aiden for a week and a half?” He waited until John nodded before continuing. “It’s because I lost control… I was relapsing.. had been for two years… after that night with the witch hunters. I was struggling to get back the balance I’d reached and it was getting harder and harder to focus… You and Laura were at school. Alyssa was home sick, you remember?” Another nod. “She had trouble breathing, she was coughing too hard and I was trying to calm her enough to get a breath in. And I touched her…” His voice cracked suddenly and he sniffed, wiping at an eye. “And she stopped coughing. She stopped moving. She stopped everything. I don’t… I don’t even know what I did, but I stopped her heart. And I couldn’t get her to wake up again… and so Derek got her to Deaton… and he helped save her. But… but the price was magick. If she ever dabbled with it… anything more than mountain ash… it’d kill her.”

John felt his stomach drop, a high pitched whine escaping him. “Mom…”

“Magick hurts…. It heals and it makes amazing things. It can grow plants and help us to find our loved ones and protect them. But it’s a doubled edged sword, John. It kills. It burns and it destroys.” Stiles whispered, a small flame igniting just above his hand. His gaze was fixed on it. “Magick can bring a light to our world. Can bring us worlds of wonder and be an amazing gift. But if you’re not careful… that same light it brings… can make the world go black.” He flicked his hand and closed it suddenly over the flame, killing the small amount of light it had given out and extinguishing its existence. 

They sat there for a long moment before Stiles looked to John. The young man’s hands were beginning to go numb, his arms and shoulder feeling like they were being stabbed by needles. The discomfort must have shown because Stiles took his hands and suddenly the pain was gone, a soft green and purple glow emanating from where their hands were joined.

“That feeling of discomfort is because your body is drawing in more energy than you’re using… it’ll stop once you find a way to control it…” He explained. John just nodded, keeping silent. “...I don’t want you learning from Peter anymore.”

“What? But-”

“Not from Peter… I’ll teach you how to control it. The theories you need and the exercises you can do. I’ll give you the materials and the resources to teach yourself… I just want you to promise me one thing…”

“Anything.”

Stiles lifted his gaze to his son, a ring of violet around his whiskey colored eyes. “Promise me you’ll never let it consume you like I let it..”

“I promise…”

 

They’d gone back to the house after that. Stiles had taken over talking to the others, ushering John off to go find Brandon. He knew they needed to talk. It took a while, the house being large. But John found him in his old room, staring out the window. He hesitated in the doorway, keeping quiet.

“.....So… you know magick…” Brandon stated softly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you… It’s… a touchy subject with my family…” John whispered, keeping his head down.

The blond just turned to look at him, eyes glowing a dull red in the dark. He looked John over for a long moment, his face betraying nothing. “...Why?”

“Because I wanted to help keep my family safe.” John answered honestly. Brandon nodded and stood up, making his way over to his mate. They stood before one another, mere inches apart for what seemed like eternity despite being only mere minutes.

“It’s gonna take me a while to… get used to this. Things won’t be ok right away… I’m going to have to let this work out and settle in my head.” Brandon stated honestly.

John nodded. He could understand that. It was a lot to take in and with Brandon’s history with magick, he couldn’t blame him. “Ok…”

“Ok…. I love you.”

“...Love you too….”

**Author's Note:**

> And viola! The next bit in John's life revealed! And look! Family bonding! YAY!!!!! Not to mention the return of the vehicle debate. I love that cops are getting camaros now. I had to give one to Stiles. As for Derek's truck, same one he had in season 3. For those of you that want to call it an "SUV" or a "Soccer mom car" no. Just no. It's a truck! You can take that thing and climb rocks and damn near 90 degree angles. Snow covered roads in the winter? Ditch? What ditch? I thought we were still on the road. Felt like the road. It's a truck! I can prove it. I have one in my family! Those things are bad ass!
> 
> And thus concludes my rant... ahem... anyway! Love it? Like it? Let us know! Kudos are great! Feedback is even better!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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